Unintended consequences

In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes that are not the ones foreseen and intended by a purposeful action. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by American sociologistRobert K. Merton.

Unexpected drawback: A negative, unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy (e.g., while irrigation schemes provide people with water for agriculture, they can increase waterborne diseases that have devastating health effects, such as schistosomiasis).

Perverse result: A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when an intended solution makes a problem worse). This is sometimes referred to as 'backfire'.

History

The idea of unintended consequences or accidents dates back at least to John Locke who discussed the unintended consequences of interest rate regulation in his letter to Sir John Somers, Member of Parliament. The idea was also discussed by Adam Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment, and consequentialism (judging by results).
However, it was the sociologist Robert K. Merton who popularized this concept in the twentieth century.

Belgium

Other

Engine knocking - in spark-ignition internal combustion engines occurs when combustion of the air/fuel mixture in the cylinder starts off correctly in response to ignition by the spark plug, but one or more pockets of air/fuel mixture explode outside the envelope of the normal combustion front

Knock (short story)

Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, Tripoli or Paris. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell! (Ponkapog Papers, 1904)

Fredric Brown condensed this text to "a sweet little action story that is only two sentences long." Knock then goes on to elaborate on those two sentences and build a more complete plot around them.

Plot summary

The first two lines are a complete story by themselves:

The Zan have killed off all life on Earth other than pairs of specimens for their zoo of exotic Earth fauna. Walter Phelan is the last man on Earth, but Grace Evans, the last woman, is not overly impressed with him and maintains her distance.

Background

As at Lourdes and Fatima the visitations occurred at a time of immense cultural, social and economic change, and occurred to people whose traditional society was under threat from social change. In the 1870s, Ireland was experiencing a period of upheaval. Some parts of the island had experienced what proved to be the last waves of a famine. This brought back memories of the Great Irish Famine of the late 1840s that had decimated the countryside. Poverty, unemployment, evictions and emigration were not uncommon.

Unintended consequences

In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes that are not the ones foreseen and intended by a purposeful action. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by American sociologistRobert K. Merton.

Unexpected drawback: A negative, unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy (e.g., while irrigation schemes provide people with water for agriculture, they can increase waterborne diseases that have devastating health effects, such as schistosomiasis).

Perverse result: A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when an intended solution makes a problem worse). This is sometimes referred to as 'backfire'.

History

The idea of unintended consequences or accidents dates back at least to John Locke who discussed the unintended consequences of interest rate regulation in his letter to Sir John Somers, Member of Parliament. The idea was also discussed by Adam Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment, and consequentialism (judging by results).
However, it was the sociologist Robert K. Merton who popularized this concept in the twentieth century.

... claimed their fifth constructors' on the bounce ... but Hamilton is hoping for just that next season, insisting this season's success may have a "knock-oneffect" ... "This should, will, have a great end to the year for us but also a great knock-oneffect for next year."....

Lewis Hamilton believes that his drivers' championship victory and Mercedes' constructors' championship win in 2018 will provide a positive "knock-on" effect for the 2019 Formula 1 season when the Silver Arrows attempt to make it six title wins on the bounce since the start of their winning run in 2014....

Kinderdijk, Unesco world heritage site, attracts each year 600,000 tourists, who swarm through the village en masse. Local residents have had enough of this, and now they are protesting against overtourism in quite a peculiar way. Sputnik spoke about mass tourism to Jonas Hickson, Science communicator and Sustainable Environmental Tourism expert ... ....

New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen fears playing regular Test matches against England would diminish the spectacle and have a negative impact on players ... While the 59-year-old would be open to the idea of more regular meetings between the two countries, he has concerns about the knock-oneffect....

Increased protectionism, triggered by the recent rise in US customs duties, is giving rise to concern that many of the countries involved in production chains will be impacted by knock-oneffects... This would make it possible for partner countries to mitigate the contagion effecton intermediate goods exported by partner countries.'....

The MalawiEnergy Regularly Authority (Mera) has increased fuel prices effective Saturday October 6 2018 a move that is likely to push up cost of transport, cost of living, goods and services, further hurting poor families .......

A major hack of Facebook has snowballed into a bigger problem – 50 million Facebook accounts have been hacked and victims could also have had accounts on thousands of other services�such as�Tinder, AirBnB�and Spotify compromised .......

"The way that you make things relevant to humans is looking at it through a human lens and saying, 'If you improve things for animals, you will also have a knock-oneffect – a positive knock-oneffect – from improving the world for humans." ... dependent on those being productive....